1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image data processing system, an image data generating apparatus, a terminal equipment and a program product, in which the terminal equipment receives data from the data generator and processes the data by using an application software installed in the terminal equipment.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a network system including a multifunctional peripheral equipment having a plurality of functions such as a scanner function, and a plurality of terminal equipments (e.g., personal computers) connected to the multifunctional peripheral equipment through an LAN (Local Area Network) may be constructed. There has been used a technique in which data of an original read by the scanner function of the multifunctional peripheral equipment is sent to a terminal equipment designated by a user (e.g., see JP-A-2000-92121, specifically FIGS. 6 and 7 thereof). There also has been provided a number of application software operated on a terminal equipment for adding received data to an e-mail, editing the received data and recognizing characters. It is therefore conceived that selection of an application software for processing data as well as selection of a terminal equipment as a transmission destination of data is performed in the multifunctional peripheral equipment. In the case above, it is conceived that a terminal equipment and an application software making a pair are selected simultaneously as shown in FIG. 17.
In the configuration, the multifunctional peripheral equipment can be used in common with a plurality of terminal equipments connected to the multifunctional peripheral equipment through an LAN. Each terminal equipments, however, inevitably receives data unintended by a user because data can be sent from the multifunction peripheral equipment to each terminal equipment unconditionally. The problem above is undesirable from the point of view of security and the presence of terminal equipment users not wanting to receive data. It is therefore conceived that entry of a password assigned to each terminal equipments is required when data is sent from the multifunctional peripheral equipment to each terminal equipment. According to this measure, passwords can be managed to prevent each terminal equipments from receiving data unintended by the user. There is however a problem that operations such as management of passwords and entry of passwords are complicated.
Furthermore, when image data of the original read by the scanner function of the multifunctional peripheral equipment is to be sent to the terminal equipment, the user however needs to know the address of the transmission destination and enter the address manually on the user's own. Therefore there is a problem that the operation to send the image data to specific terminal equipment may be felt troublesome by the user.
In addition, as shown in FIG. 12, in the method in which the terminal equipment and the application software making a pair are selected at once, options corresponding to the number of terminal equipment-application software combinations, however, must be displayed. As a result, the number of options may be too large for the user to select an option.